Document generated on 09/27/2021 11:53 a.m. Labour/Le Travailleur Reviews / Comptes Rendus Volume 19, 1987 URI: https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/llt19rv01 See table of contents Publisher(s) Canadian Committee on Labour History ISSN 0700-3862 (print) 1911-4842 (digital) Explore this journal Cite this review (1987). Review of [Reviews / Comptes Rendus]. Labour/Le Travailleur, 19, 169–252. All rights reserved © Canadian Committee on Labour History, 1987 This document is protected by copyright law. Use of the services of Érudit (including reproduction) is subject to its terms and conditions, which can be viewed online. https://apropos.erudit.org/en/users/policy-on-use/ This article is disseminated and preserved by Érudit. Érudit is a non-profit inter-university consortium of the Université de Montréal, Université Laval, and the Université du Québec à Montréal. Its mission is to promote and disseminate research. https://www.erudit.org/en/ REVIEWS / COMPTES RENDUS Leo Panilch and Donald Swanr, From Consent to Coercion: The Assault on Trade Union Freedoms by Glen Makahonuk / 169 Ian McKav, The Craft Transformed: An Lssav on the Carpenters of Halifax. 18X5-1985 by Michael Kazin / 171 Mike Solski and John Smaller, Mine Mill- The Htstors of the International I'man of Mine. Mill and Smelter Workers in Canada Sou e 1895 by Douglas O. Baldwin / 173 Gordon Inglis. Mare Than Just a Union: The Stor\ of the SFFAWL by Bryanl Fairlcy / 174 Viclor Howard. "We Were the Salt oj the F.arth!" A Narrative of The On To Ottawa Trek anil the Ref-ina Riot by Michiel Horn / 177 Mervin Y.T. Chen and Thomas G. Regan, Work in the Changing Canadian Stnietv by Joseph Smucker / 179 J.B. Cunningham and T H. While, eds.. Quality «! Working Life: Contemporary Cases by James Rineharl / ISO Henri Gagnon. l.e\ P M.F.. lies pelites el movennes entreprises) a I'agonie h\ Geoffrey Kv.en / IH2 Jonalhan Lomax, Fits! and Foremost in Commitnit\ Health Centre'.: The Centre in Saitlt Sle Marie and the PHC Alternative* b> Theodore H. Tulchinsky / 1X3 Brit- H. Monkkonen. ed , Walking. to Work. Tramps in America. I7W-19J5 by Michael B Kal/ / I X5 Philip S Foner, The Workiniiinen's Party of the I nited Slates: A History of the hirst Mat \i\l Fart\ in the Americas by W.M. Dick / 1X7 David J. Hogan. Class and Reform: School and Society in Chicago. I880-I9M) by Dan Hawthorne / 189 Naomi R. Lamoreaux, The Great Merger Movement in American Business. /895-1904 by Stephen Seheinberg / 1911 Pele Daniel, Breaking the Land. The I ransformation of Cotton. Fohaico. and Rice Cultures Since 1880 h> Sieven Hahn / 191 Peter Carlson. Roughneck. The Life and I lines of Big Bill Huvwootl by Mark l.eicr / 193 Donald F,. Winiers, Jr., The Soul of the Wobhlies: The I.W.W.. Religion, and Ameritan Culture in the Progressive lira. 1905-1917 h\ Clurk Halker / 195 Allan Keni Powell, The Next lime We Strike. Labor in the Utah Coal Fields. I900-I9.ij by Dave Roediger / 196 Joe William Trotter. Jr.. Black Milwaukee: The Making of an Industrial Proletariat. 1915-1945 by James R. Barrel! / 198 Royden Harrison and Jonathan Xeillin. eds . Divisions of labour. Skilled Workers and let hnological Change in Nineteenth Century Britain by Alvin Finkel / 201 H. Gustav Klaus. 'The Literature of Labour: Two Hundred Years of Working-Class Writing bj Graham Carr / 203 K.I). Hrown, ed.. The First Labour Parts: 1906 1914 by Melvin Shells / 206 4 Alex Callinicos and Mike Simons, The Great Strike — The Miners' Strike of 1984-5 and Its Lessons by Frank Roberts / 207 David I. Kertzer, Family Life in Central Italy, I880-I9I0: Sharecropping, Wage Labor and Coresidence by Franca lacovelta / 209 Albert Szymanski, Class Struggle in Socialist Poland by Thomas Rutman / 212 John Riddelt, ed., Lenin's Struggle for a Revolutionary International. Documents 1907-1916: The Preparatory Years by Christopher Schenk / 214 Mark Halstrom, Industry and Inequality: The Social Anthropology of Indian Labour by Hugh Johnston / 217 Verity Burgmann, 'In Our Time': Socialism and the Rise of Labor, 1885-1905 by Jeremy Mouat / 219 Edward D. Beechert, Working in Hawaii: A Labor History by Catherine LeGrand / 220 Joan Kelly, Women, History, and Theory by Linda Kealey / 222 " Helen Remick, ed., Comparable Worth and Wage Discrimination by Roberta Edgecombe Roth / 224 Kathryn M. Borman, Daisy Quarm, and Sarah Gideonse, eds., Women in the Workplace: Effects on Families by Arlene Tigar McLaren / 226 Laurie Larwood, Ann H. Stromberg, Barbara A. Gutek, eds., Women and Work, An Annual Review by Anita Clair Fellman / 228 Paul Willman and Graham Winch, Innovation and Management Control: Labour Relations at BL Cars by Wayne Lewchuk / 230 Tom Juravich, Chaos on the Shop Floor: A Worker's View of Quality, Productivity and Management by Robert Wrenn / 232 Christopher Eaton Gunn, Workers' Self-Management in the United States by Gerry Hunnius / 234 William DeFazio, Longshoremen: Community and Resistance on the Brooklyn Waterfront by Eli Zaretsky / 236 Ellen Meiksins Wood, The Retreat From Class: A New "True" Socialism by Bryan D. Palmer / 237 R.E. Pahl, Divisions of Labour by Paul Phillips / 240 William B, Gould IV, Strikes, Dispute Procedures, and Arbitration: Essays on Labor Law by Paul Craven / 242 Eric Schragge, Pensions Policy in Britain: A Socialist Analysis by David P. Williams / 243 Charles Handy, The Future of Work: A Guide to a Changing Society by W. Warren Wagar / 247 C. Stewart Doty, The First Franco-Americans. New England Life Histories From the Federal Writers' Project, 1938-39 par Pierre Anctil / 247 Marie Lavigne Yolande Pinard, Travailleuses et feministes: Les Femmes dans la societe quebec oise parDenyse Baillargeon / 250 REVIEWS / COMPTES RENDUS Leo Panitch and Donald Swart/, From third, the increasing frequency of perma­ Consent to Coercion: The Assault on nent legislation restricting trade union Trade Union Freedoms (Toronto: rights." (39) A new era of permanent Garamond Press 1985). exceptionalism was created in its place. This new era marks a return to the situa­ THIS IS AN IMPORTANT and timely tion in which the state and capital rely on polemical study of the recent assault on coercion, fear, and force to subordinate trade union rights in Canada. Most of this labour. This is not to imply a return to the short monograph, part of Garamond's state's use of the police as the only means Network Basic Series, appeared in to coerce labour, but rather to the formal Labour/Le Travail 13 (Spring 1984), as use of coercion in the rule of law. an article entitled "Towards Permanent Exceptionalism: Coercion and Consent in But what is meant by free collective Canadian Industrial Relations." The arti­ bargaining and when did it exist? The cle was based on an earlier paper prepared industrial relations orthodoxy, as Panitch for an October 1982 conference on public and Swartz refer to it, is premised upon sector industrial relations sponsored by the acceptance of the word "free" to the Carleton School of Public Administra­ mean, on the one hand, a balance of tion and the Institute for Research on Pub­ power between capital and labour in the lic Policy. Written in response to the fed­ bargaining process; and, on the other, a eral government's passage of the Public state which acts as an impartial umpire in Sector Compensation Restraint Act (Bill the application and interpretation of C-124) in June 1982, the only new infor­ impartial rules. The authors argue that the mation in the monograph is the discussion era of free collective bargaining began of the recent passage of provincial anti- with the labour legislation of the 1940s, labour legislation, particularly by the particularly Order-in-Council PC 1003 Bennett government in British Columbia. which was followed by the Industrial Panitch and Swartz argue that the era Relations and Disputes Investigation Act of free collective bargaining came to an of 1948. The provinces followed with end with the introduction of Bill C-124 in similar legislation that granted workers 1982. They suggest this legislation con­ the right to organize, to bargain collec­ stituted an assault on trade union rights tively, to engage in conciliation and arbi­ which was comprised of three factors: tration procedures, and to strike. Such "first, the generalisation of the federal legislation did not evolve through a pro­ government's '6 and 5' restraint legisla­ cess of gradual reformism, but was a tion which temporarily removed the right direct response to the militant labour to strike from most public sector workers struggles of the 1930s and 1940s and the in Canada; second, the partial extension of rise of the Cooperative Commonwealth the restraints to the private sector; and Federation. Indeed, Saskatchewan's CCF government produced, according to the Canadian Congress of Labour's Political Table of Contents for Reviews is on pp. Education Committee, the most progres- 4 & 5. I 170 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL sive labour legislation in Canada when it manent restrictive measures passed in the passed the Trade Union Act of 1944, provinces is also provided. These restric­ Although the so-called era of free col­ tive measures were based on the neo- lective bargaining continued well into the conservative, anti-union logic of premiers 1970s, labour still found itself limited to like Bill Bennett and Peter Lougheed, bargaining on bread-and-butter issues who argued that it was in labour's interest such as wages, hours of work, fringe ben­ to entrust its future to capital. efits, pensions, vacations, sick leave, shift The final and most interesting section premiums, overtime, job promotions, and of the monograph is "Towards the layoff procedures. Rarely has labour. Future," where Panitch and Swart/ evalu­ especially in the public sector, been able ate the labour movement's response to the to make any significant inroads into those new era.